 The PowerPC Macs SuperWikiPost: a WikiPost finding aid

[B S Magnet]

 The PowerPC Macs SuperWikiPost
a WikiPost finding aid
First assembled: April 2021
Latest update: 22 July 2023


PURPOSE

Over the years, many WikiPosts have assembled an incredible brain trust of MacRumors PowerPC Macs forum members who’ve shared everything they know for keeping PowerPC-based Macs running well beyond their planned or expected lives.

What makes this “SuperWikiPost” different from all other PowerPC-related WikiPosts is it works as a springboard to reach all of PowerPC-related WikiPosts quickly. It makes this a meta-WikiPost of sorts: it serves to organize all PowerPC-related WikiPosts in one place and to serve as a finding aid.

The end-hope here is this SuperWikiPost can be sticky-pinned to the PowerPC forum to help anyone, either new or seasoned, to find what they’re looking for without having to do a lot of keyword-searching. As future WikiPosts are created, they may also be added to this index.


WHAT’S A “PowerPC” MAC?

Technically, a PowerPC Mac is every Mac whose CPU was designed and manufactured by the AIM — Apple-IBM-Motorola — Alliance. It includes Macs between 1994 and 2005. This forum covers most “New World Mac” models with G3, G4, and G5 CPUs — roughly, 1998 through 2005. The earliest of these include the original, Bondi Blue iMac G3.

[Earlier PowerPC Macs shipped with PowerPC 601 and 603e CPUs (this would be like a “G1”, if that distinction existed) and 604 CPUs (which would have been a “G2”). Most of these were “Old World Macs” and matched with a unique “Gestalt ID” (a “personality” holdover from the original, Motorola-only, pre-PowerPC Macs of 1984–1994).]


WHO MAY EDIT THIS META-WIKIPOST?

Just like other WikiPosts, anyone can update and make changes. If you’re unsure about formatting when adding something new, just ask the community.

Unlike other WikiPosts, additions and changes here should solely be for adding links and descriptions to other MacRumors forum WikiPosts which help make the care and running of PowerPC hardware go more smoothly.


NOTES

1. Every link below takes you to a WikiPost!
2. All links in this hue are sticky WikiPosts;
   links in this hue are sticky WikiPosts on limited-access forums.
3. WikiPosts within each section listed below are alphabetized.

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GETTING STARTED

FAQ for PowerPC Macs

FAQ [WikiPost] for PowerPC Macs
[NOTE: this is an earlier, no longer maintained FAQ WikiPost]

For New Users: The Starter Thread

Operating Systems for PowerPC Macs

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BROWSERS

PowerPC Web Browser Options

FoxPEP and Classilla
[for OS 9 & early OS X w/ Classic]

The Unofficial TenFourFox Development Toolkit

Userscripts to fix TenFourFox/Interweb-PPC web compatibility
[including partial or full functionality restoration for Discord, Github, Zoom, and more]

‘Web 1.1’: A Comprehensive Guide to the New-Old Web

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RE-USE & UPCYCLE / PARTS TRADING / CLEANING & RESTORING

Cleaning plastics: Goo-Gone or Goof-Off?

G-series (G3/G4) laptop restoration and modding

[Maintenance] Proactive Service Manual (and Experience Revitalizer)

Spare parts community trading thread for legacy PowerPC and Early Intel Macs
[NOTE: requires qualified member access)

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HARDWARE

DECODING SERIAL NUMBERS

Apple serials: decoding where & when hardware was assembled, 1983–2021


EXTENSIONS & UPGRADES

Adding cheap Bluetooth 3.0 [for PowerPC Macs]

The Apple Display Connector (ADC) Monitor System Thread

PPC cooling and quieting mods


iBOOK G3/G4


iMAC G3/G4/G5 & eMAC G4


MAC MINI G4


POWER MACINTOSH G3; POWER MAC/INTOSH G4 (inc. MAC CUBE G4); POWER MAC G5

The G3 Workstation Wiki

The G4 Workstation Wiki

The G5 Workstation Wiki

Most powerful video cards for use in beige Power Macintosh G3s

[Power Mac] G5 Problems and Solutions Thread


POWERBOOK G3 (New World) & POWERBOOK G4

PowerBook G4 Titanium Common Problems and Solutions

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FIRMWARE

The Open Firmware Wiki

PowerPC Mac Firmware / Boot ROM Updates

Sil3112 Mac OS (pre-OS X) Mass Storage Drivers

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SOFTWARE

PowerPC Software Sources

How to Install Java 6 and 7 on PowerPC OS X (Leopard)

MinDisc: A Lightweight Leopard Discord Client

The PPCMC (PowerPC Media Center) Thread

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MAC OS X/OS 9

OS X 10.6 “CLOUDED LEOPARD” (SNOW LEOPARD DEVELOPER PREVIEW ON POWERPC)

Snow Leopard on Unsupported PowerPC Macs

Macports: building binaries for OS X 10.6 on PowerPC (using SL on PPC plus Rosetta on 10.6.8)


OS X 10.5 LEOPARD

The Leopard Thread

OS X Leopard/Leopard Beta on Unsupported G3/G4 Macs


OS X 10.4 TIGER

The Tiger Thread

What Apps Do You Use on OS X Tiger?


OS X 10.3 PANTHER

The Panther Thread


OS X 10.2 JAGUAR

The Jaguar Thread


OS X 10.1 PUMA

The Puma Thread


OS X 10.0 CHEETAH (AND KODIAK PUBLIC BETA)

The Cheetah Thread

The Kodiak Thread


RHAPSODY/OS X SERVER 1.0 HERA

The Rhapsody Thread (Mac OS X Server 1.x)


OS 9 CLASSIC

The OS 9 Thread

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ALTERNATE OSes

BOOT LOADERS

The Yaboot Thread


BSD

The OpenBSD Wiki


LINUX

The Debian Sid Installation Guide for PowerPC

The PowerPC Debian Wiki

The Void Linux Wiki


MorphOS (Amiga)

The MorphOS Thread


UX/DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS

Aqua UI for POSIX OSes (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, openSolaris, etc.)

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AESTHETICS

iMac G3-Flavour Wallpaper Packs

Industrial design: pre- and post-iMac G3
[instances of translucent, coloured plastics in products]

Project: Complete Collection of PowerPC Wallpapers

PowerPC Wallpapers

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BENCHMARKING

Post Your SSD/CF SATA/PATA PowerPC Benchmark Results

PPC Mac Benchmark Link List index

Some PowerPC OpenMark Benchmarks

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NETWORKING

File sharing via sshfs / FUSE

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SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Make my PowerPC FASTER

Ultimate Tiger Speedup Guide for Single-Processor G4s

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UI/UX

Fun [UI] Stuff for PowerPC

Mojave Dynamic Desktop for PowerPC

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WEB/CLOUD SERVICES

Cloud-based storage options for PowerPC

How to Remove Flash (Flash Is Officially Dead!)

The KDX Living Thread

Legacy springboard for commercial web services Thread

 

[z970]

What a great initiative, @B S Magnet! Excellent work!

@arn Perhaps this WikiPost can replace the other WikiPosts that have already been stickied to the top of the forum? It would certainly save on vertical space.

 

[B S Magnet]

What a great initiative, @B S Magnet! Excellent work!

@arn Perhaps this WikiPost can replace the other WikiPosts that have already been stickied to the top of the forum? It would certainly save on vertical space.

Of the four WikiPosts which are stickied to the forum (and are highlighted in green above), maybe one should stay stickied — in particular, the FAQ for PowerPC Macs, considering it has the most views of all stickied WikiPosts.

 

[B S Magnet]

Update:

I have added a poll!

 

[Raging Dufus]

👏👏👏 Well done. What a great idea!

 

[B S Magnet]

👏👏👏 Well done. What a great idea!

Thank you! Hopefully this will be the beginning of making PPC content and available resources a whole lot quicker and easier to find for everyone.

 

[B S Magnet]

Per changes by @alex_free, I’ve just added the “3-1-2021 - PPCMC 7.2.3 - YouTube/Twitch Streaming, Downloading, File Conversion, Web Interface & More For Panther+ 604/G3/G4/G5” thread, now a WikiPost, but I have simplified it on the SuperWikiPost to read as The PPCMC (PowerPC Media Center) Thread.

 

[B S Magnet]

Latest update:

I have added The OS 9 Thread!

 

[z970]

@maflynn Please sticky this thread to the top of the forum!

EDIT: Success!

 

[MysticCow]

iThink we could use a general "The Linux Thread" that is a general wiki. It can point to the distro topics we have here and even help someone new to Linux about "reasonable alternative" software.

 

[Raging Dufus]

We already have the PowerPC Debian Wiki stickied at the top of the board, and we also have a Void Wiki. They reference each other with links, and both are already linked in this Super Wiki. Did you have something else in mind?

 

[B S Magnet]

We already have the PowerPC Debian Wiki stickied at the top of the board, and we also have a Void Wiki. They reference each other with links, and both are already linked in this Super Wiki. Did you have something else in mind?

Further to this, I would be delighted to see a “The MintPPC Thread” brought to life for @Jeroen Diederen ’s project, aggregating together how-tos and having other machine-specific considerations compiled in one place.

 

[B S Magnet]

UPDATE: As with the same over on the Early Intel Macs forum, I updated the PowerPC Macs SuperWikiPost here with some formatting improvements and the addition of a couple of recently created wikiposts.

 

[cellularmitosis]

Thanks for all your work on this @B S Magnet ! I added a link to the Finnix live CD and to the FUSE / sshfs post about file sharing. Hopefully we can find some other good file sharing posts to add there as well.

 

[B S Magnet]

Thanks for all your work on this @B S Magnet ! I added a link to the Finnix live CD and to the FUSE / sshfs post about file sharing. Hopefully we can find some other good file sharing posts to add there as well.

Thanks for the kind word!

Now, the not-so-good news:

I’ll be removing your Finnix addition from the WikiPost — not because it’s not useful info (it is!), but because this WikiPost is, literally, a WikiPost of WikiPosts on the MR forums relevant to PowerPC Macs.

But…

If you start a new WikiPost thread on getting Finnix to run on PowerPC (running from live CD or, more tricky, a USB stick), I can add a link to that WikiPost in the above.

For the sshfs/FUSE/ZFS thread you started, all you’ll need to do for that thread is to enable the WikiPost feature on the right-hand area of the thread header. I just nominated it, which means you might be seeing a notification shortly to go ahead and upgrade your post to a WikiPost:

I’ll be leaving the sshfs/FUSE entry alone for now, with the understanding that you’ll be upgrading it to a WikiPost.


Keep sharing what you know!

 

[cellularmitosis]

Thanks for the pointers!

 

[Doq]

To add a bit to that, this might not be the wikipost to add your Finnix thread to, but there probably is one for that, such as maybe the PowerPC Debian Wiki (which used to be called the Linux Wiki; wonder what happened there....), as Finnix is Debian-based.

 

[PowerPCFan]

VERY helpful. 10/10!